Ed Watts

Glad to report that Oksijan continues its march through the international film festival scene, thanks to the help of our friends at Festival Formula who are handling the insanely complicated submissions process.

So glad that the vitally important story of Ahmad’s fight for survival is being shown around the world – hopefully making people think about what more we can do to help the millions of child refugees like him.

Here’s a place to start – offer whatever help you can to the charities Help Refugees and Meena, both of whom were crucial to the effort to save Ahmad and the 14 other refugees trapped with him inside the refrigerated lorry.

I was overjoyed to see this ITV News at Ten report on the Amar Foundation’s fantastic work helping women & girls who were kidnapped by ISIS recover from their trauma.

The report shows the practical positive impact the charity’s Escaping Darkness appeal is having on the ground, two years after it was launched in response to the huge public reaction to Escape from ISIS.

And it features the one and only Khaleel! I haven’t seen him for a long time, great to know he’s still hard at work trying to bring all the women and girls back to safety.

Keep up the good work everybody. Here’s to the day when all those young women have been brought safely home.

We’re all delighted to announce that OKSIJAN has been accepted into the BFI London Film Festival! We’re one of about 100 shorts that will be playing across the eleven day programme It’s a great honour and accolade for the hard work the whole team put in.

The film is screening on October 5th at the Curzon Soho and Friday 6th at NFT2, as part of the ‘Thrill of the Chase’ showcase. Grab them quickly because they’re selling fast!

Oksijan is an independent short film based on the incredible true story of a seven-year old Afghan refugee’s battle to survive as he was smuggled to the UK in the back of a refrigerated lorry and the air inside began to run out.

We have already shot the film, with a fantastic cast including rising British star Ella Purnell, and an award-winning crew including the cinematographer of Oscar-winning short Stutterer. Now we need your help to get us over the line!

All money raised will help to pay for the edit, post-production and distribution, giving this film a chance to be as good as it can be and spread its message of hope far and wide.

So please share our campaign with your networks – use the indiegogo “share” feature and tag us #OKSIJANfilm to help us spread the word

Also please likeour Facebook Page and follow us on Twitter we’ll keep you up-to-date with our progress @oksijanfilm

Delighted to announce that “Escaping Darkness” the mental health treatment campaign run by the AMAR Foundation – which was inspired in part by Escape from ISIS and which I was honoured to help launch – is hugely expanding.

Thanks to generous funding by a US donor, the programme will increase its number of treatment centres in the Kurdish region, as well as opening new centres across Iraq, including in Baghdad and Najaf.

It will now be one of the main providers of mental health support for all of Iraq’s people, no matter their ethnicity or religion, something that is desperately needed in a country that has suffered such horrific violence in years of war.

Well done AMAR! And thanks to all those who have supported the Escaping Darkness appeal. Together, we can all help to reverse our world’s slide into savagery.